“Here, the directors of five festivals — Sara Ortiz of the Believer Festival, Lissette Mendez of the Miami Book Fair, Amanda Bullock of the Portland Book Festival, Steph Opitz of The Loft’s Wordplay, and Conor Moran of the Wisconsin Book Festival — discuss how their teams made it work.” – Literary Hub
Category: words
Is Kenyan Literature Finally Finding Its Footing?
“Kenya’s literary dwarfism is partly a result of the virulent anti-intellectualism of the longest running regime in the country, the period from 1978 and 2002 when Daniel arap Moi was President. Those years were characterized by arbitrary arrests, detention, and the exile of scholars including world-renowned author Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Micere Mugo, both former professors of literature at the University of Nairobi.” – Guernica
The Mark Twain Election Story That Was Required Reading In Communist Chinese Schools
“‘Running for Governor’ is barely known in the United States. Samuel Clemens was editor of the Buffalo Express when it was published. It is the story of his run for governor, as Mark Twain, in 1870 — well, fictional run, of course.” The story was placed on the school curriculum soon after the People’s Republic was founded and remained there for half a century. – The Buffalo News
A Site Built To Compete With Amazon, But For Indie Bookstores, Makes Moves In Britain
Bookshop opened in the U.S. in January, hoping to build its site slowly while helping independent bookstores in the States. Five weeks later, cue COVID-19 shutdowns. “By June, Bookshop sold $1m worth of books in a day. The platform has now raised more than $7.5m (£5.7m) for independent bookshops across the US.” Now it’s starting to partner with independent bookstores in the UK as well. Why not? Amazon certainly threatens their existence as well. – The Guardian (UK)
The House Where Jane Austen Wrote All Of Her Novels Is In Some Structural Trouble
The building’s roof issues threaten the collection of the Jane Austen Museum, the museum says. – BBC
Using Books – Cookbooks – To Escape, And To ‘Travel,’ Right Now
Samin Nosrat: “What has occurred to me in the last several years — and what feels particularly acute right now — is how unevenly represented different parts of the world are on my shelves.” – The New York Times
Britain’s So-Called Equalities Minister Suggested That Some Black Authors Wanted Racial Division
More than 100 British authors reacted quickly. “The allegation here is not only clearly false but dangerous. It risks endangering the personal safety of anti-racist writers. In recent years progressive writers, politicians and activists across Europe and the United Kingdom have been physically attacked and killed by far-right extremists.” – The Guardian (UK)
What Is Novelist Elizabeth Strout Doing To Stay Culturally Alert During The Pandemic?
The author of Olive Kitteredge (for which she won a Pulitzer) and many other novels, including 2019’s Olive, Again, just fell for the playing of pianist Hélène Grimaud, and continues to find Edward Hopper’s art comforting. – The Guardian (UK)
Should Rimbaud And Verlaine Be Re-Interred In The Panthéon? (A Very French Contretemps)
Adam Gopnik: “Obsessing as so many are on the small niceties of American politics — i.e., the final confrontation between the forces of light and darkness on which all of humanity’s future depends — let us spare a moment’s thought for a couple of obscure French poets and their fate.” – The New Yorker
Book Industry Starts Taking Real Steps To Become More Diverse
“Publishing houses across the industry are making senior-level hires and structural changes to try to make their companies, and the books they acquire, more diverse — racially, ethnically and even geographically. While critics, including authors and publishing insiders, have accused publishers of paying lip service to these issues, the companies are increasingly making lasting changes to the way they do business, and in some cases they are already being driven by newly hired executives of color.” – The New York Times